Slim Blue Universe

Slim Blue Universe

Poems often tell their own stories through the eyes and words of the poet. There are many different voices told in each of the 40 poems taking everyone who reads them on a journey through life withstanding the middle of the 20th century and the tribulations faced plus hoping that each finds new way to uncover their own mysterious pathways that might be tight in front of them.

Themes of social justice, reliving Woodstock, and understanding the hardships faced hoping for peace, and the struggles we are still facing dealing with social change and justice. Those who gave their lives and others who returned from fighting in the Vietnam War wondered and hoped for a better world. Societies did not budge it change and the changes we fought for remained the same in an unjust world that would not bend to changes. The poems tell a story sometimes sad and other times reminding us of the beauty of the intricate  constellations in the sky as if it’s your emotions high and slowly declining into a dark corner. Each poem has its own mood or reflections on life and different times. The poem that inspires many is called Safe Passage. : In this house, now where twilight  has become my name, there is only one hour left of perhaps more who can tell. Twilight is the time between day and night just when it gets dark but now there yet. The poem says in the morning I am walking the roads carrying a sack going nowhere. the person feels that he. She has been sentenced to wander in the western lands.  The final stanza expresses it all as he wees creates in the twilight that know this person’s name and he will add that for safe passage as if the person wants to keep them safe along with the voice we hear.

Someone New is a poem that tells of the narrator saying he would renounce his own memories. He knows they are real, yet the world is hot, gold and dusty. He wishes he was in another world. He remembers when a  letter comes from Paris, and it  speaks  of women and girls who have gone shopping in Paris. Prayers of the Lost Jew or lonely Christian and they’re the holy longings. .. It’s    that the narrator wants the world to begin over again. Then he remembers his mom, memories say it snot too late to gather together in someone; s and name him All he wants I someone new to care for.

The Book of Devotion expresses that the narrator feels time is short and needs a way to express his/her feelings. The person speaking feels sad, needs to express arguments but cannot and can someone recommend the goodwill of the angels, but the person might be mistaken. The heart is rebelling, and he feels  alone. He dreamed about his mother’s arms, the loss of hearing her voice and asking SO YOU HEAR ME/ still trying, traveling the days to colors and more. As the pages  of a book turn and this person hopes there are more he knows there is a book of devotion, and he knows there is he hopes a radiant way. Survival is the theme and the journey taken the narrator hopes to make and win.  Each poem is a longing for the past, hoping the present will bring the narrator some joy and read the Younger Self, the My Dears and Darlings and Reminiscence as memories flood back and despite knowing now what we have always have to leave behind. Sadness and despair fill the lines of all of these poems and yet somewhere in the middle there is hope.

The second section title Voices from Beyond allows those that have tone to tell and their stories form beyond as you read Friends of the filmmaker and we hear the voice of those in pain as in this poem the life now pain and trouble and then the narrator states don’t par outside the hospital the beds can hear you and the medicine prescribed in the throes of bad dreams have problem of their own. Voices from Beyond is within this second and the narrator says there are a log of things that might be helpful such as if the voices would say something to us. Revisiting life seeing the night stars, mysterious occurrences and the living  the vapor trails as the narrator takes the trip along with over the ark of hope he almost forgot, and they join their hands as one. Every poem has its own message like Beautiful Denizens  of the Deep , Dark  night which begins with when we were alive and will  in the long ago and what happens in the dark night. Love named comments morning, , people how they dressed, worry crying in the closet and rent needed to be pain and never trusting anyone or anything. And the ending is heartwarming and yet very powerful making you wonder what is real and what is hoped. The final poem I will highlight is Leaving This World as in each poem the narrator expresses this in his/her own voice. The narrator realizes that something has changed and speaks to dust. The seagulls, in ending fling and more evident that each day claps with such small hands drawing as close as an afterthought. Imagine the night realizing the dead as so long gone their messages cannot be  trusted anymore. But the last three words embrace it all. Each poem takes us to the narrator’s special universe filled with darkness, clouds, sadness, blue skies at times and yet something within the narrators in each section hopes for more than just the doom of life and the truths and lies of life and what most endured. The poet author leaves readers with many thoughts in so many areas of the past, present hoping for a brighter future.

Fran Lewis Just reviews

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